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And she reveals how her friend rang her from his home in Powys, Mid Wales, just the day before his death.

Richard – who died after several bouts of illness – was Emmerdale’s longest-serving cast member, having played ­Woolpack landlord Alan since 1982.

“It was Saturday and I got a call from Richard which was a lovely surprise,” says Lorraine, who plays Queen of Mean Steph Forsythe.

“He was very bright, he said he was doing well. He sounded 100 per cent. And then of course the next day I heard the news he'd died.”

On October 30 viewers will see Steph – who was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2006 for the murder of her brother Terence – return to the village in handcuffs to attend her dad’s funeral.

Lorraine says that, in a poignant twist of fate, father-of-four Richard had asked her to come back to the soap in that final phone call – and they joked about the kind of storylines writers could cook up for Steph’s return.

Lorraine reveals: “He said, ‘I wish you’d come back so we could have another good storyline together’.

“So I asked him, ‘What do you reckon Steph’s up to in prison? She’s probably running her balcony. I bet she’s the one in charge. She’s probably got ‘bitch’ written across her head and tattoos up both her arms and has changed her sexuality’.

“He liked my idea, he said she’d definitely be running it and I promised him I would get in touch with my agent on Monday.”

On screen: Lorraine and Richard as Steph and Alan (Image: Rex)

Lorraine, who has never married and rose to fame as the ­glamorous cockney in Campari’s Luton Airport TV ads in the 1970s, never got a chance to make the call.

Soon after Richard’s death, producers got in touch with her to ask her back to film his character’s funeral.

“Of course, I said I’d love to,” she says.

“That way, I thought, I can keep my promise to Richard.

“It was such a sadness to think I’d made the promise not knowing the way it would come about would be this. It was ­great going back because I haven’t been there for so long and they gave me a warm welcome.

“They’ve given Alan a lovely send-off.There’s a bit with ­motorbikes which he would have loved.

“But not only that, Richard would have loved it as well because he had a Harley-Davidson too and was often seen on it.

“It did also feel a bit like a real funeral, where it’s nice to see friends and family but it’s a shame it’s under such sad circumstances.

“So when the bikes came round, everyone had a tear.”

Losing her co-star came as an extra blow to 62-year-old Lorraine.

Her real dad, Charlie Parsons, died aged 80 just a year earlier. In her final phone call with Richard she told him he would have to step up and fill the gap.

“I told Richard all about how I’d lost my dad and I said to him, ‘You’re my only dad now’,” she says.

“We were very close. When I picked up the phone that day and Richard said who it was I went, ‘‘Ello dad!’

“It’s not every actor I’d say that to just because they played my dad. Richard gave you that feeling he cared.

“We had quite a father-daughter ­relationship. I think we were both quite proud of each other.

“When I went and stayed with him, he’d introduce me by saying, ‘This is my lovely daughter from ­Emmerdale’.

“And he would worry about me. He would always ask if I was all right.

“He’d ring up and check because he knew I was on my own.

“It was hard to get much banter with my dad in the early years as he was in prison for robbery.

“It wasn’t hard to get close to Richard. My dad was a man’s man whereas Richard definitely loved the company of ladies. He would rather stand and talk with a group of ladies in the bar, whereas my dad would be with the blokes and the beers.”

But despite the differences in their personalities, Lorraine found there were some eerie parallels between the deaths of her two dads.

She attended three-times-married ­Richard’s funeral in May and was amazed to discover that, despite the actor having lived for years in Knighton in the Welsh borders, it was being held in Mortlake, south-west London – at the ­crematorium where she had said goodbye to her own father little more than a year before.

“Of all the places they could have done it, they chose to do it there,” she says.

“I just found that extraordinary. There seemed to be an association between him and my dad.

“And then there’s the funeral episode itself. In it, I come from prison so I’m there in handcuffs and, of course, my dad was in and out of prison so again his death had connections with my dad.”

She says that at times she could not help feeling that there was a strong link between the events.

‘I’m not superstitious but I’m spiritual and ­connections like this interest me,” Lorraine says. “And also the fact that he’d rung me.

“I hadn’t spoken to him for a while and we had a lovely chat and he said some wonderful things.

“If I didn’t know better it was almost as if he’d known and he wanted to let me know how much my friendship had meant to him.”

Lorraine says Richard, having taken time off from the show in 2009 and 2010 to have a knee-replacement operation, was on the up again, although he did spend less time on screen.

And despite having been on and off the set due to ill health for several months, she says when she spoke to him he told her he was feeling good and looking forward to the future.

The actress – who earlier this year told the Sunday Mirror she would rather go to a Swiss assisted suicide clinic than endure illness until the bitter end – says knowing he was feeling better helped her cope with her grief and support his family.

“Just to know he’d rung me the day before, to know he was so happy and so bright, full of life and planning for the future took away a great deal of the sadness,” Lorraine adds.

“He was in a very good place. He had no idea it was coming and it happened very quickly and it was lovely to be able to tell his family that.